Page 60 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2014

From Around the World with the
Legendary

Rhythm &

Blues Cruise

A tranquil view of the ship waiting for cruisers to come
back from a fun day ashore Photo by Gord MacAuley
Estonian Mati Vaarmann was traveling with his buddy Tiit, an
engineer. “I’m from a musical family myself. I am a keyboardist
and my sister is a famous musician back in Estonia; we would

By Kaati travel anywhere, anytime for good music.”
Peter from Ontario, Canada said, “I do like the January cruise
Ever wonder how many countries are represented onboard especially because of the bigger ship. I am a member of my local
the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise (LRBC)? Well, my beau blues society back in Canada and go to all the club gigs and
David Landry and I sailed aboard the October 2013 cruise out festivals, but you can’t find so many great musicians in one place
of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and decided to entertain ourselves in one week: Papa Chubby, Tommy Castro… I can’t even think of
between performances by asking folks from afar why they had who else at the moment, there are so many.”
come on the cruise and how they heard about it. Kevin and Shelagh Bourke are from Manchester, U.K. and tell
This ship was comparatively small with 1165 passengers, us they’ve known about the cruise for years and were desperate
staff and band members. Of this number, 165 of them were from to come on it. This is their first year on the cruise which they
16 countries outside the United States including Austria, Australia learned about through blues publications and searching websites
(22), Canada (86), Switzerland, Germany, Estonia, France,
United Kingdom, Hungary, Ireland, Mexico, Netherlands,
Norway, Sweden, Ukraine, Israel, and Zambia. LRBC promoter
Roger Naber added, “The October 2012 cruise, which sailed
from San Juan, Puerto Rico, set a record when it was represented
by 28 countries. We typically have international passengers from
20 countries on our January cruises. Canada is always very well
represented on the ship plus we usually have a great number
of passengers from Norway and Australia. We have had blues
cruisers come from every continent except Antarctica. The blues
breaks down all social barriers like no other music we know.”
While on the October 2013 cruise, David and I decided to use
our phone recorder to capture comments from our international
blues friends. “Hola from Norway,” shared cruiser Olav. “I live
on the West Coast of Norway in Bergin. I don’t belong to our
blues society yet but there are blues societies in Norway and
they are growing. I like the cruise so far – it is my first one; I am
an [LRBC] virgin.” He said he hopes he’ll return next year despite
the long airplane ride and expense of air travel… ”it is worth it;
nothing like this anywhere.” Cruisers party on the LRBC with Rick Estrin & The Nightcats Photo Ÿ Joseph A. Rosen

58 Blues Festival Guide 2014